Manufactured Spending

[longtimelurker]

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@Juss11 wrote:

If yu go into say Vons/Safeway and buy a gift card. Can the credit card companys see what your buying? If you just buy say strait $500 then it may look like a ift card. But what if you buy a coke or somthing with it. Would they still beable totell if its a GC? I just spent $500 on my PRG card at CVS to buy a GC for my friends wedding next weekend. How does Amex treat this? I had never heard of MS at the time.

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If the store does level 3 reporting, the issuer can get an itemized list of what was purchased.  Which doesn't mean that every such purchase is scrutinized, just that it could be.

Some do recommend buying an extra item (or putting just less than $500 on a gift card) to disguise and vary the amount, in case the issuer is looking for "bad" numbers, such as multiples of $503,95, $504.95 and $505.95.    I really doubt any such algorithm is used, simply because it is so easy to get around by those very simple methods!

Much easier to have a rule like: "If more than 4 purchases above $400 a month (or total above $1200 per month) at 5% stores for more than 3 months, investigate"

[WuXing5]

this thread does not belong here, OP should have it deleted.

[longtimelurker]

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@WuXing5 wrote:
this thread does not belong here, OP should have it deleted.

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Why?  DIscussion is allowed, just not advocating.

[Genkeim]

For my own clear conscious I buy $1500/month in giftcards in order to pay car payment and mortgage. In my head I'm spending the money anyway and if I could I'd use the CC direct I would. None of the giftcard money goes to pay off the CC, that comes from my bank accounts. Granted there are ways to channel the money from giftcard to bank account and pay CC but that's crossing the line for me.

[longtimelurker]

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@Genkeim wrote:

For my own clear conscious I buy $1500/month in giftcards in order to pay car payment and mortgage. In my head I'm spending the money anyway and if I could I'd use the CC direct I would. None of the giftcard money goes to pay off the CC, that comes from my bank accounts. Granted there are ways to channel the money from giftcard to bank account and pay CC but that's crossing the line for me.

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These are all great rationalizations, but you are buying cash equivalents to get rewards on these payments.  Sure, you would pay these bills anyway (so it's not excess spending) but if you paid them from your bank account, your cc company wouldn't need to give you rewards. It is the transaction and not intent that matters to the issuers.   Now, if the rewards are less than the swipe fee, they probably won't care.

[Jlu]

Every month I buy Vanilla Visa's with my CC and then load them onto my Serve for free at Family Dollar to pay bills that don't accept CC payments. I can't really say I feel bad for credit card companies when I do this...Take a look at their quarterly financial results if you want your conscience to feel clean.

[Fico2Go]

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@Jlu wrote:

Every month I buy Vanilla Visa's with my CC and then load them onto my Serve for free at Family Dollar to pay bills that don't accept CC payments. I can't really say I feel bad for credit card companies when I do this...Take a look at their quarterly financial results if you want your conscience to feel clean.

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I look at it as me helping businesses to accept CCs as payment.   And for those who think using CCs to buy things or make payments are in some way unethical, then by all means go carry cash. 

Learning the most advanced ways to pay bills and spend money is part of knowing how to spend your money. 

NO, I'm not going back to carrying gold bullions to gas stations.

[juggalo9er]

on  A side note....i really do not think its ethical that staples.com sells visa gift cards.....to me its like promoting ms